Coatally fabulous

When I was growing up, coats were pretty much the bane of my life and I had a hate against them for a long time. That's most likely because my mum used to dress me in blue puffer coats with itchy fur hoods! This year I've discovered a real love for coats though because I've realised they can literally transform any outfit. What with me always being one extreme or the other, I now own 20 coats (all of which I've bought in the last year) and I've had to buy a clothes rail to put them on because my clothes are bursting out of my wardrobes. Don't worry though; I found a cute pink rail, although it is massively in the way and I have to wheel it round constantly to get round my room. Along with my blue fur coat that I showed you in Sunday's blogpost, I also got these 3 beauties delivered over the last few days so I thought I'd put together some outfits to show you. I also need to adapt to blogging in the winter! These dark evenings are not ideal at all - seeing as I started my blog in January and didn't actually feature in it until April, I've never had to deal with winter blogging! So apologies for the bad lighting in the photos.

This outfit was also incidentally yesterdays OOTD and it wasn't until I had already left the house and got some strange looks in Tesco that I realised I was channelling a bit of a Vivian look (Ward not Westwood) - at the start of pretty woman not the end. Those of you who live in big cities like London or New York have probably never had to deal with this but I get looks of confusion and wonderment if I even go bare legged or wear a hat. Nottingham is definitely not a very fashion forward city and while I was going for 'working woman', they seemed to think I looked more like a regular working girl. Anyway, I still love the outfit and I'm sure if I wore it in London no one would even bat an eyelid. The coat is kindof an investment as it was £64.99 from new look but it makes me feel like some kind of Russian princess when I wear it and it's so cosy it's definitely worth the money. I went with a very wintery mix of grey and pale blue; a pale blue leather-look skirt (river island, £25) and blue floral print blouse (new look, £19.99). I finished with the ultimate a/w must-have - thigh high boots! These ones were £40 from new look last year but everywhere is selling them right now so it shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on a pair.

This is quite possibly the brightest outfit I've ever worn in my life - it's definitely the brightest coat I've ever owned! I have a huge coat collection but there are still some colour gaps in it (for instance, I still haven't found the perfect yellow coat) and I started looking for a coat this shade based on my style inspiration and personal idol (although she is fictional), Blair Waldorf. The coat she wears in the scene where chuck finally tells her he loves her (anyone who watches it will agree that that is the best scene throughout the entire 6-season collection) is the same gorgeous green colour and I initially found a nice one from M&S but it was cashmere so it was £120. I'm not exactly money-savvy but that's pushing it a bit far even for me. So I used shopstyle.co.uk to search for 'green coat' and I found this gorgeous collarless one on very.co.uk for £75 which is still expensive but considerably cheaper than the first one I found! I love the length and fit and it's a definite statement! I wore it with this collared kaleidoscope-print shift dress (river island £30) which is the exact same length so it goes really well. I love the 60s style and the sheer black sleeves and I finished the statement outfit with these missguided strappy-sandal-bargains which were only £12.99.

I personally think cobalt blue is so hot right now (I've got my eye on a pair of cobalt trousers from the colourflux collection by pretty little thing) and the easiest way to wear it is by keeping the rest of your outfit monochrome. I went with a very simple yet classic outfit; black jeans (Topshop £36), white strappy heels (missguided £24.99) and white checked top. I got the top from new look over a year ago for about £15 but there's a similar one on inthestyle.com which is part of Charlotte's nostalgia collection. The cobalt coat is the outfit staple - it's actually a coatigan (halfway between a coat and a cardigan of course) which means it's ideal in these autumn days when the weather can't decide what it's doing. It was only £29.99 from new look aswell so definitely worth buying! I finished with another classic staple - a red colour pop lip.